Hooray for Tuesday's MP3: Marta Tennae

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Hooray for Tuesday's MP3: Marta Tennae

Published Monday, March 19, 2007 by Jeff | E-mail this post

Jeremy Barnes is best known as Neutral Milk Hotel's drummer and the mastermind behind the Hungarian-folk-music-inspired A Hawk and a Hacksaw. But before all this, he played in Bablicon under the alias Marta Tennae (along with Dave McDonnell, aka "The Diminisher"--who just released Imaginary Volcano--and Griffin Rodriguez, aka "Blue Hawaii"). In 2001 Jeremy released two recordings under the Marta Tennae name: a lengthy track called "PHHHHHHH#" on the Japan-only compilation Border Music...Flicker of a Smile: U.S. Pop Life Vol. 10 Athens Experimental, and then a full-length avant-garde CD-R called Excerpts from a Janitor's Almanac, 2000. This concept album sounds exactly like what it claimed to be: separating improvised piano pieces can be heard the sounds of a vacuum cleaner, or the mysterious janitor locking up after a day's work. No further explanation is provided with the CD-R--nor does there really need to be. Quickly after this release, Jeremy shifted his direction somewhat, tightened his focus, and A Hawk and a Hacksaw was born; the band's third release, the critically acclaimed The Way the Wind Blows, was released on The Leaf Label last year. The Marta Tennae album is out of print; here's a selected track from it below, along with "PHHHHHHH#."

Marta Tennae - PHHHHHHH#
Marta Tennae - Untitled (track 7)